About Remote Reporter
What is Remote Reporter?
F.A.C.T.S., a leading provider of advanced Freight
Auditing, provides their customers with a wide variety of detailed reports,
some running hundreds of pages.
As their customer base grew, so did the demands for timely
reports. In an effort to respond to
customer demands, F.A.C.T.S. teamed up with Midwest Software Development
Corporation to develop a solution.
The Remote Reporter application is the result.
Key Benefits:
Remote Reporter gives F.A.C.T.S. customers several key
benefits:
·
Customers are able to produce key reports from
their own data exactly the way F.A.C.T.S. produces them.
·
Customers are able to produce these reports when
they want, instead of waiting for F.A.C.T.S. to produce the report, and ship it
out to them.
·
Customers are able to look up freight bills in
an easy to use screen, that shows all the details of the bill in an easy to
understand format.
·
Through easy-to-install updates provided by
F.A.C.T.S., the customer’s data is kept current.
·
Since new data is regularly supplied to
customers, the data Remote Reporter has to draw on grows on a continuing basis.
·
Customers now can look up old freight bills at
their offices, without calling F.A.C.T.S. to answer questions about paid bills.
New Features in 2.0
Remote Reporter includes many new and improved features
over previous versions of the product.
Among these are:
·
Drill-Down in reports. Drill-Down allows you to “Dig into” a total
displayed on a report and see what makes up the total. A quick example follows using the Freight Dollars by Movement Type report.
Report in the
new Preview Window.
In the view above, the Freight
Dollars by Movement Type report is displayed. Notice as the cursor is moved over a total
field, it changes to a magnifying glass, indicating you may click to
“Drill-Down” into the number. In the
illustration above, look at the “Refrigerated Whse” line. Double clicking here gives us the drill-down
into the total, as seen in the next illustration.
Drilling Down
into a total field is as easy as point and click!
Other new features of Remote Reporter 2.0 include:
·
Data Edition Numbering – this ensures you get
the right data in the right order to eliminate data corruption that can be
caused by loading an older data supplement after a newer one.
·
Report settings may be saved and loaded later.
·
Reports may be batched, allowing you to run
several reports at one time.
·
Reports are easily exported to Excel, Lotus,
Word, or plain ASCII text files.
Technical Support
Technical support for this application is available
directly from F.A.C.T.S. You are allowed
two free calls for technical support within the first 30 days of receiving your
Remote Reporter software.
After 30 days, or two calls for support, you will be
billed at the rate of $1.00 per minute for technical support, unless you
discover an actual “bug” or defect in the software, in which case the call is
free. F.A.C.T.S. and/or Midwest Software
Development Corporation alone shall determine what is and what is not a “bug”
or defect in the software.
Product Updates / Enhancements
As Remote Reporter is enhanced, or reports are updated,
updates will be made available for download from the F.A.C.T.S. website at www.factsfreight.com/factsasp/ReporterPatches.htm
There is no charge for updates posted to the website.
Corrections to the software to fix “bugs” or defects are
always provided free of charge.
Overview
This section provides a brief introduction to the Remote
Reporter software.
The menu options are shown, and briefly described with
references to other relevant sections of this manual are also noted.
Opening Screen
When you first start Remote Reporter, you are presented
with the following dialog. This dialog
will display each time you start the program, unless you remove the check mark
in the box labeled Show this form at
startup near the bottom of the dialog.
Introductory Form
When you clear the Introductory
Form by clicking the Continue
button, you are presented with Remote Reporter’s desktop:
Desktop
Remote Reporter Desktop
Note:
If your computer is set to 640x480 resolution (not recommended), the picture
will almost fill the entire desktop.
From the desktop, you access the menu, and all functions
that Remote Reporter provides for you.
Menu Structure Table
|
Menu
|
Sub-Menu
|
Description
|
|
File
|
Import Data
|
Loads Data Supplements provided by F.A.C.T.S.
|
|
File
|
Reindex / Pack Tables
|
Optimizes and tunes Remote Reporter databases.
|
|
File
|
Exit
|
Exit the Remote Reporter application
|
|
Reports
|
Look Up Bills
|
Allows you to view any freight bill in your data base in
the same format as F.A.C.T.S. Tools
are provided to quickly locate a particular freight bill.
|
|
Reports
|
General Reports
|
A collection of general reports.
|
|
Reports
|
Batch General Reports
|
Allows you to easily set up batches of reports and run
multiple reports with one mouse click.
|
|
Reports
|
Check Reports
|
A collection of general check run reports.
|
|
Reports
|
File Listings
|
Simple reports showing the Carriers, Movement Types, and
Accessorial Types currently in use by F.A.C.T.S.
|
|
Admin
|
Errors
|
Error Listing form
|
|
Admin
|
Directories
|
Shows the current Remote Reporter directory structure.
|
|
Admin
|
Environment
|
Allows you to customize several attributes of Remote
Reporter.
|
|
Admin
|
Command Prompt
|
Allows direct manipulation of the data contained in Remote
Reporter. This should only be used at
the direction of F.A.C.T.S. or MSDC personnel, and for that reason, this is
password protected.
|
|
Window
|
<none>
|
As you work in Remote Reporter, the forms you currently
have open are listed by name in this menu for easy reference.
|
|
Help
|
Contents
|
Access this help file.
|
|
Help
|
Search for help on
|
Search this help file using keywords.
|
|
Help
|
About
|
Version information for Remote Reporter.
|
|
Help
|
Introductory Form
|
Display the Introductory Form.
|
|
Help
|
Show Quick Access Toolbar
|
Redisplays and returns the Quick Access toolbar back to
the top left corner of the screen, just under the menu.
|
|
Help
|
Registration
|
Software Registration Information.
|
|
Help
|
File Status
|
Show the size of Remote Reporter’s database.
|
|
Help
|
History of Revisions
|
A text file detailing revisions made to Remote Reporter by
Midwest Software Development Corporation.
|
As you can see, Remote Reporter provides many features!
Quick Access Toolbar
In addition to the menu, Remote Reporter provides a toolbar
to access the most frequently used functions.
Quick Access Toolbar
The functions provided by the toolbar are:
|
Button Caption
|
Function
|
|
Lookup
|
Opens the Freight Bill Lookup screen.
|
|
Gen Reports
|
Opens the General R&R Reports screen.
|
|
Batch
|
Opens the Batch Reports screen.
|
|
Check Reports
|
Opens the Check Run R&R Reports screen.
|
|
Import
|
Opens the Import Data Supplements screen.
|
|
Question Mark Icon
|
Opens the On-Line Help system.
|
Note also that this toolbar may be docked anywhere on your
desktop, similar to other Windows programs.
Getting Started
Getting Started
This chapter covers Remote Reporter system requirements,
and installing Remote Reporter.
System Requirements
Remote Reporter will only
run on a IBM-compatible PC with:
·
Pentium 133 MHZ processor or faster (minumum 266
MHZ Pentium recommended).
·
32 MB (minimum) RAM (Random Access Memory), 64 MB recommended.
·
50 MB free hard disk space.
·
Windows 98 SE, NT 4.0 SP 3 or higher, Windows
ME, 2000, or XP. Remote Reporter WILL NOT run on any version of Windows before
Windows 98 SE.
·
SVGA screen capable of displaying more than 256
colors, 800x600 screen resolution highly recommended.
·
HP Laserjet or compatible printer.
·
Connection to the Internet, either with a 56 Kb
modem, or through your company LAN.
·
E-Mail account that can receive file
attachments. Note the size of the
attachments could be well over 1 MB, but generally are much smaller.
Installation
|
While you may install on a network
server, it is not necessary. If your
company uses a Novell network, and does NOT have support for Long File Names,
then you may NOT install to the network.
|
Installing Remote Reporter
couldn’t be simpler:
|
1.
Download the application from the F.A.C.T.S. website at
www.factsfreight/factsasp/requestremotereporter2.asp.
2.
Open the downloaded file by double clicking on it in
Windows Explorer.
3.
When Setup
starts, simply follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.
After installation is complete, you must register your
software with F.A.C.T.S., then load your first F.A.C.T.S. Customer Data
Supplement, that will arrive via E-Mail as a file attachment shortly after you
register the software.
Follow the appropriate procedure in the Data Supplement chapter of this manual to install your
F.A.C.T.S. Customer Data Supplement.
Data Supplements
What are Data Supplements?
Data Supplements are files that F.A.C.T.S. will be sending
to you on a regular basis (probably once a week) to keep the Remote Reporter
software constantly up-to-date with freight bills that F.A.C.T.S. has paid on
your behalf.
You should install each Data Supplement you receive from F.A.C.T.S. so you don’t have
“holes” in your data.
Your Data Supplement
will comes to you via E-Mail as a file attachment
What does the Data Supplement Contain?
Your Data Supplement contains the following:
·
Freight bills processed by F.A.C.T.S. that have
been paid.
·
This includes all freight bills from the last
Data Supplement you received.
·
If this is the first Data Supplement you have
received, then it will include all freight bills processed by F.A.C.T.S. for
your company from July 1st,
1997 forward.
·
Current lists of Carriers, Movement Types,
Accessorial Charge Types, and Shipping Addresses.
·
Unique Edition identifier that is used by Remote
Reporter to ensure you have received the correct data.
The Data Supplement
contains all of this information in a special file that is compressed to
save space and encrypted to ensure confidentiality of your data. The Data Supplement file can only be read by
your Remote Reporter software.
Data Supplement as an E-Mail Attachment:
If you received your Data Supplement via E-Mail as a file attachment, you must
save the .mcf file to your hard disk
before you can import the data into Remote Reporter.
Since various E-Mail programs have different ways of
saving a file attachment to disk, it would be difficult if not impossible for
us to document this process. Speak to
your company MIS department for assistance if necessary.
Loading the Data Supplement
To install your Data Supplement, simply choose Import Data from the File menu in Remote Reporter, and point
Remote Reporter to the .mcf file on
your CD, Diskette or your hard disk.
Once you have specified the correct path to the .mcf file, you click the Import button on the Import Data from F.A.C.T.S. form to
complete the process.
The following illustrations show this entire process:
Selecting Import
Data from the File menu
The Import Data form
Notice the location of the mouse pointer in the previous
illustration. Pressing this button opens
the following dialog, which makes it extremely easy to point Remote Reporter to
the location of your Data Supplement file.
Data Supplement file locater dialog
The following illustration shows where I have found my
Data Supplement file.
I have found my Data Supplement file!
Pressing the Ok
button on this dialog returns you to the Import
Data form, and loads the MCF File
Path field for you, thus telling Remote Reporter where to find the Data
Supplement.
Remote Reporter now knows where my Data Supplement is.
Now we simply press the Import button to begin the Data Supplement load process.
When you press the Import
button, Remote Reporter goes to work, and does several things:
1.
The .mcf file is opened, and all the files it contains
are extracted to the Import folder
in Remote Reporter’s folder. By default,
this is C:\FBAR\IMPORT.
2.
Each file is then read from the Import folder and appended to the appropriate data table inside
Remote Reporter. You will receive
several messages while this takes place.
3.
You are informed the operation is complete, and
reminded to Pack and Reindex your
files.
What follows is illustrations of the import process in
action.
Importing Master Pro Records
When the import process is completed, your tables are
reindexed and packed, which allows Remote Reporter to operate as efficiently as
possible.
Reindexing and packing the tables after importing
When the import process is completed, you receive the
following message:
Import
Complete message
Viewing Freight Bills
Reports - Look Up Bills
Choosing menu path Reports
- Look Up Bills shows the following form:
View Freight Bills form with List tool displayed.
From the displayed List
tool, you can rapidly locate any freight bill in your database, regardless of
how many bills you have.
List Tool:
The List tool
has features that assist you in locating freight bills:
·
Freight bills can be instantaenously sorted by Master Pro# or by Date Paid, in either ascending or descending order with just a
click of the mouse.
·
Incremental Search capability to speed
searching.
·
The List
tool window may be expanded to show many bills at one time.
When the List
tool is first displayed, it is sorted ascending by Master Pro#. You can tell
this because the Master Pro# column
is highlighted.
If you click on the Master
Pro# column header, you will sort the bills in descending order, as shown
here:
List sorted descending by Master Pro#
In the illustration above, the mouse pointer is pointing
to the column header of the Master Pro#
column.
Click the column header again to sort the list ascending,
as shown in the first illustration.
Click the column header of the Date Paid column to sort the list ascending by date, as shown here:
List Tool sorted ascending by Date Paid
Clicking anywhere in any of the rows displayed will
highlight that row, as shown here:
List Tool with a freight bill selected
Clicking the Ok
button closes the List tool and
loads the selected freight bill into the form for viewing.
|
This is the fastest way to locate a freight bill
|
You may also simply start typing
the Master Pro# of the freight
bill you want to view, and the List
tool will instantly take you to the bill, or as close as it can, based on how
much of the number you type.
|
For our examples here, we will be using two different
freight bills:
·
7066801
·
657030508
Instead of scrolling aimlessly through the list of bills,
we simply start typing the number we want, as shown here:
Incremental
Search in progress
Note: The mouse pointer is showing you where the
number you are typing appears. You do
not have to have the mouse pointer in that location, in fact the mouse could be
anywhere on the screen.
Notice how we have entered in only part of the Master Pro# we want - 7066 - but the List tool has already moved us very
close, in fact, type one more number - “8” - and the List will select the bill we want - instantly.
Freight Bill selected!
Now simply click the Ok
button to accept the freight bill, and the List
tool closes.
Master Pro Number
When the List
tool closes, the View Freight Bills
form displays with the Master Pro Number
page in front:
Master Pro Number page displayed
This page of the form provides some basic information
about the freight bill. Click on the
tabs at the top of the form to see all the components of the freight bill.
Movement
Clicking the Movement
tab displays the “meat” of the freight bill, as shown here:
Movement portion of the freight bill
This page shows a wealth of information about this bill,
from the date of the bill (Pro Date)
to the date paid (Paid) to the
F.A.C.T.S. operator that actually entered it (User ID).
Most of the fields on this page have “tool tips”
associated with them - simply hover your mouse pointer over a field for a few
seconds to see the tool tip, as shown here:
Tool-tip
display
Distribution
Clicking on the Distribution
tab displays the distributions of the freight bill. Each freight bill has to have at least one
distribution:
Distribution page displayed
If there are more than one distribution for a freight
bill, the sum of the Amount of Charge
field for all distribution is the Freight
Cost amount on the Movement page
of the freight bill.
Accessorial
Clicking the Accessorial
tab displays the accessorial charges of a freight bill. Each freight bill may or may not have any
accessorial charges associated with it.
Freight bill 7066801 has several (six to be exact)
accessorial charges:
Accessorial page displayed
|
View Freight Bills Form Toolbar shows you when there is
more than one record for a component of a freight bill you are currently
viewing.
|
If you haven’t noticed yet, there
is a toolbar right below the menu bar:
|
Look Up Bills Toolbar
This toolbar contains 6 buttons, with the following
functions, from left to right:
·
List
·
First record
·
Prior record
·
Next record
·
Last record
·
Close (form)
You will notice if you change back to either the Distribution or Movement pages, the only buttons that will function are the List and Close buttons. But on the